Infamous Islamist terror-supporter Anjem Choudary will be given his own “safe house” and be allowed to claim benefits again when he finishes his jail term for recruiting for Islamic State.
The plan, which will cost the taxpayer tens of thousands of pounds, comes amid fears he will form a new pro-terror supergroup with other recently-released extremists and individuals returning from Syria and Iraq.
He and other members of his now-proscribed al-Muhajiroun (ALM) group will also be placed under surveillance, banned from the internet, and made the subject of a curfew for the protection of the public and themselves.
“There’s a lot of apprehension and concern that Choudary will re-energise the ALM network when he comes out,” a senior counterterrorism official told The Sunday Times.
Any efforts by the government to curb the benefits for terrorists and extremists would almost certainly trigger a legal challenge.
Choudary, 51, a trained solicitor, once described jobseeker’s allowance as “jihad seeker’s allowance” and urged his followers to claim it.
London Bridge terrorist Khuram Butt was linked to the network around Choudary, as well as suspected executioner “new Jihadi John” Siddhartha Dhar, failed suicide bomber Omar Sharif, and Brusthom Ziamani, a teenager jailed for 22 years after plotting mass murder in London.
Mizanur Rahman, 35, who was jailed with Choudary for the same crime of drumming up support for Islamic State, will be released alongside him in coming weeks or days after both served just half of their five and a half year sentences.
Mr Rahman is considered even more dangerous than his once-tutor, security sources told The Telegraph, and the two men are prevented from meeting each other and other members of al-Muhajiroun, and its various incarnations.
He was groomed at just 17 years old by Mr Choudary and the exiled hate cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed, who was linked to the now-reformed Finsbury Park Mosque when it was a hotbed of terror and radical Islam.
He studied to become a web designer and set up secretive forums for the extremists and worked to spread radical Islam on social media, including under the Twitter name Abu Baraa.
One source said: “We will have to wait and see what happens when they are released. It’s fair to say that Rahman is more computer literate than Choudary and younger and more energetic. That is a big worry.”
It is reportedly a major concern that one of Rahman’s childhood friends and associates is Siddhartha Dhar, the “new Jihadi John” Islamic State executioner who allegedly took his family to Syria in 2016.
Rahman was once convicted of soliciting killings after calling for the beheading and annihilation of people who insult Islam as well as for terrorist attacks in Denmark, Spain, and France.
Calling for the death of British and American soldiers in Iraq, he said: “We want to see them coming home in body bags. We want to see their blood running in the streets of Baghdad.
“We want to see the Mujahideen shoot down their planes the way we shoot down birds. We want to see their tanks burn in the way we burn their flags.”
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